1. Two of Us
2. Dig a Pony
3. Across the Universe
4. I Me Mine (Harrison)
5. Don’t Let Me Down
6. Let It Be
7. Maggie Mae
8. I’ve Got a Feeling
9. One after 909
10. The Long and Winding Road
11. For You Blue (Harrison)
12. You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)
13. Get Back

1. Some Other Guy (Live At The BBC)
2. Red Sails In The Sunset (Live At The Star Club)
3. Love Me Do (Live At The BBC)
4. Mr. Moonlight (Live At The Star Club)
5. Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby (Live At The Star Club)
6. Soldier of Love (Live At The BBC)
7. Slow Down (Live At The BBC)

«Words are flying out like endless rain»

Since the beginning of this column, it was pretty clear our approach to the whole thing, like if it was a game. This time we are more (or less) serious and change cards on the table, distorting history’s course and events.
Fab Four passionates will probably be on the right way to understand, the others will find out in a while.
We’ll treat Let It Be, their last official release, as if it wasn’t the last one.
Because, in facts, it wasn’t.

What does this mean? For a series of events, the record that we know well was released in May 1970 but was recorded at the beginning of 1969, before Abbey Road’s recordings began. It was supposed to be called Get Back and being produced by Glyn Johns, but the four were unhappy with the result, so it was set aside and resumed lately. Johns had to select something decent from hundreds of hours of recordings, a task so difficult that resulted impossible to him. The mission was accomplished by the american Phil Spector, not without problems, as we shall see.
So, the last album recorded, Abbey Road, will be for us the last episode of the series.
As we are playing, let’s substitute something in fact useless as “Dig It” (we can already hear screaming fans), to insert the beautiful “Don’t Let Me Down” and the brilliant “You Know My Name (Look Up The Number)”, B-side of the single “Let It Be”.
Here’s the new, non-existent, track list.

1. Two of Us
2. Dig a Pony
3. Across the Universe
4. I Me Mine (Harrison)
5. Don’t Let Me Down”
6. Let It Be
7. Maggie Mae
8. I’ve Got a Feeling
9. One after 909
10. The Long and Winding Road
11. For You Blue (Harrison)
12. You Know My Name (Look Up the Number)
13. Get Back

Not bad!
First things first.
The project began as a record and a live film, a realistic movie of the band’s work, cameras always on to discover how the greatest band on the planet wrote, rehearsed, recorded. Everything should be played live, no overdubs. A sort of Big Brother that would certainly intrigued millions of people, or more.

The problem was that the four, after years in close contact, barely stood each other, often working separately and fighting heavily, involving technicians and producers; several people had already refused to work with them again.
They wanted (Paul more than the others) a ‘reality’ movie, and unfortunately, it was. Cameras filmed in a pitiless way the crumble of a band and the fights that no one is supposed to see: you don’t go in the football team lockers room at the end of the first half, if you don’t play in the team.
So here is Ringo passively accepting everything that happens, George playing what he is asked answering back in his sharp way, John taking part in a rather detached way killing with a glance of his eye, and Paul playing a part he knew to be false and useless.
Luckily that movie saw the legendary Apple’s rooftop performance, where the four played together a bunch of songs for the very last time, people in the street were astounded, looking at the sky, and policemen stopped them because unauthorized: so much irony in this ending.

Despite everything, here we are, writing about a piece of history.
Many of us would give an arm to write songs like “Across the Universe” or “Let It Be”, “Get Back” or “I’Ve Got a Feeling”. Songwriting at the highest level, something great was still coming out of their work.
The record saw the light thank to Phil Spector’s work, the american producer who was considered a guru at the time, and so many years later we must agree with that. His work on Let It Be was heavily judgeg, he was accused of filling the songs with too much orchestration and overdubs (McCartney was really angry because of “The Long and Winding Road”), but the truth is that – how Lennon said years after – «he was given the shittiest load of badly recorded shit with a lousy feeling to it ever, and he made something of it». And after listening to Let It Be… Naked, the original songs released recently without Spector’s work, he was right.
But our purpose was to write about guitar, so let guitar be.

Electric Guitar

We could start from the title track and quote the famous guitar solo by Harrison: two versions exist, many of us thought it was two separate recordings of the same song; the track was in fact the same and George played two different solos in separate moments. “One after 909” was one of their first songs, written before being famous, a rock’n’roll inspired by the music they grew up with, supported by electric guitars and recorded live as the great “I’ve Got a Feeling”. The opening riff is one of the simplest and more incisive things John Lennon ever played, the song is enriched by guitar parts, other than Paul’ singing and John’s vocal part that overlaps to the first as a second song. Another example of how the four could bring to the future the music of the past. Not to mention “Get Back”, wonderful tune made precious by Lennon’s rhythm and solo guitar parts, where he shows to be a lot better – as a guitarist – of what he was (or still is) considered.

Acoustic Guitar

“Two of Us” is beautiful in his unplugged simplicity. About “Across the Universe” it’s impossible to write already unsaid things. But the whole record is more electric – please refer to the following Davide Canazza’s thoughts.

Arrangements
Thank to the initial idea (not respected till the end), the one that saw the band playing live with no overdubs, arrangements are pretty easy and functional, very rock’n’roll in some cases, more pop in others. The difference between soft unplugged songs and aggressive electric tunes is impressive, but everything result in a homogenic record – who knows if because of the quality of the material or because of Spector’s work.
The presence of a fifth musician, nearly full time for the first time in the band’s history, has an importance. Billy Preston was lucky to be a part of the project, he plays electric piano on “Get Back” and “I’ve Got a Feeling”, and the organ on others like “Let It Be”. His presence is fundamental and we can hear how much a musician from a different context could give in that situation.

Vocals
Waiting for the magnificence of Abbey Road, we enjoy the double voices on “One after 909” and “Two of Us”, and the orchestral choruses of “Across the Universe”. But there’s no vocal excellence, just a honest team work. Moreover, the mode of production of this album didn’t allow the band to carve and add elements such as voices, in their usual manner.

Winston’s Thoughts

by Davide Canazza

I will go against the grain, bu Let It Be is one of my favourite albums. The reason is because, deep down, you can feel what it really should have been – a live LP or almost, recorded without a lot of frills, just like the old times, but with the technology of 1969. And so it’s a record that brings out the excellence of these four musicians from Liverpool, who this time weren’t helped by the possibility of overdubbing or re-doing a part subsequently.
In my opinion, Phil Spector’s production ruined this initial genuineness, adding too many instruments and too much ‘stuffing’ to songs such as “Across the Universe” or “The Long and Winding Road” (I may be blasphemous but, despite all my love for The Beatles, I almost reach the point of hating it!) and even making Harrison, McCartney and Starr return to the studio once The Beatles had practically split up, in order to record “I Me Mine”, that’s a piece completely decontextualised both in terms of arrangements and feelings.
That’s why my personalised Get Back (the title that the initial project should have had) is a compromise between Glyn Johns’ Get Back and McCartney’s unfortunate Let It Be… Naked.
I’ve had the good fortune to listen to hours and hours of recordings of the sessions of Get Back from January 1969. I have almost everything and I can say that the best material is more or less what was published officially, but I would have saved a couple of other small bits. And for this, I’ll hazard a go at making my own personalised playlist too.

1. Get Back (45 rpm version)
2. Don’t Let Me Down (45 rpm version)
3. Two of Us (33 rpm version Let It Be)
4. Dig a Pony (33 rpm version Let It Be – live on the rooftop)
5. All Things Must Pass (rec. 29th January)
6. Dig It (short 33 rpm version Let It Be)
7. Let It Be (version Let It Be… Naked)
8. Maggie Mae (33 rpm version Let It Be)
9. I’ve Got a Feeling (33 rpm version Let It Be – live on the rooftop)
10. One after 909 (33 rpm version Let It Be – live on the rooftop)
11. The Long and Winding Road (version Let It Be… Naked)
12. Rocker (rec. 22nd January 1969)
13. For You Blue (33 rpm version Let It Be)
14. Teddy Boy (version Get Back by Glyn Johns)
15. Across the Universe (version WWF February 1968)
16. Get Back Reprise (version Get Back by Glyn Johns)

Naturally I would seek to keep everything as close as possible to the original idea, choosing pieces without overdubbing, whenever possible.
Whatever version you prefer, this project’s material is very interesting and – despite inside disputes – The Beatles show that when it comes to playing there’s nobody can hold a torch to them. As long as you’re just playing around, you can strum along haphazardly, but when you have to record something that can be released, the four of them become impeccable. When Billy Preston comes along on the Rhodes electric piano and Lowrey organ, it goes back to being a band of professionals. It’s hardly worth making a fool of yourself, is it? And despite a few quarrels that are now water under the bridge, the atmosphere at the end of the session is still productive and full of jokes!

The guitars steal the scene completely. Lennon’s Casino crosses over with Harrison’s rosewood Telecaster, just arrived from the USA together with a whole load of material all genuine Fender: three Silverface Twin Reverbs (on the rooftop the guitarists have one each, and there’s also a third one that’s connected to the Honher Pianette – Lennon uses the Normal channel and Harrison the Vibrato one); two Rhodes electric pianos (one for Paul and the other for John – one of these is used by Preston on the roof); and a PA system that’s used on the roof as well as in the Apple studios.
These instruments were joined by a Wah VOX and a Fuzz Face, that were both used by George.
The two guitarists often exchange roles. In “Get Back” it is Lennon who plays the solo and the riffs that answer the chorus, while Harrison beats out the rhythm with off-beat chords. John returns to the rhythm in the other pieces, but is always ready to back up Harrison’s guitar during the closing fills and the riffs.
So in “Dig a Pony” he plays alongside George during the initial riffs and the finale, while in “I”ve Got a Feeling”, as well as playing the characteristic riff-accompaniment, he doubles up the closing passages of the piece played by Harrison, with a version an octave lower. The two bars bending by George half way through the song is also famous, first rising and then falling, the creation of which was the cause of some bickering with McCartney!
Harrison shows all his bravura and experience in the solo parts of “One after 909”, with a gritty solo, double-stops and passages that accompany the whole song. In “Dig a Pony” too his work is considerable and never banal. In “Don’t Let Me Down” there’s no solo, but Harrison’s guitar has a fundamental role just the same.
The most interesting aspect of these pieces is that the two guitars never play the same thing and never overlap. Each one of the two guitarists always knows exactly what to play and how to play it!
In “Let It Be” and “The Long and Winding Road” the original bass is played by Lennon on his Fender VI Bass, but in the official version it has been dubbed during post-production. Orchestral and choral parts were added to both the songs.
“Let it be” was released in three different versions, each one with a solo that was different from the others, even though each was played by Harrison: the first, the original live recording, is present in the version Naked, the second can be heard on the 45 rpm version of the song, and the third is on the LP.
In the other pieces the acoustic guitars dominate. The arrangement of the “Two of Us”, in which John and Paul take up their Martin D-28s, while George plays a bass line with his Telecaster, is rather interesting.
In “For You Blue”, George plays a Gibson J-200 with a capo on the 5th fret, John is on the steel guitar (a Hofner for support, tuned to DADF#CD), Paul is on the piano and Ringo on the drums. There’s no bass guitar!
During the sessions numerous pieces were tried out, that came to light later on the album Abbey Road. It’s worth remembering a version of “I Want You” in funky style, sung in a duet by Lennon and Preston, “Old Brown Shoes”, “Something” and “Octopus’s Garden”. Other pieces such as “Wake Up This Morning”, written by McCartney but sung by Lennon, never saw the light. Others will come to light later on the solo LPs by the various members of the group: “All Things Must Pass” by Harrison, “Teddy Boy” by McCartney and “Gimme Some Truth” by Lennon, to name just a few.

I Saw The Beatles Live – 5

By Dennis Conroy

The Cavern, 1961 (photo by Dick Matthews – www.samleach.com)

It’s a wednesday evening session at the Cavern, sometime between 1961 and 1963. If you can read this while playing the tracks listed below, it will be as near as you could ever get to hearing The Beatles in the Cavern.
Kingsize Taylor and the Dominoes had left the stage after opening the evening show. Kingsize, who was a big man and a huge fan of Fats Domino, performing many of his songs in the band’s set, was also a big favourites in Hamburg, where the band regularly played.
The Beatles, unannounced, take to the stage. Their equipment is already in place from this afternoon’s lunchtime session. Paul starts sifting through bits of paper which contain requests, mostly from the female side of the audience, arranging them no doubt to fit in with their anticipated running order.
George as ever is making certain his guitar is in tune, no easy feat in pre guitar tuner days, in a club where the brick walls were already glistening with condensation before the group’s first number. The use of the word ‘group’ to describe The Beatles was the term we all used back then.

The Cavern, 1962 (photo by Dick Matthews – www.samleach.com)

Pete’s making final adjustments to the positioning of his drums, as he chats to George, while John picks up the large tarpaulin upright piano cover, which was lying on the stage floor after Kingsize Taylor and The Dominoes had left the stage.
John looks at it and shouts towards the dressing room: «Kingsize, you’ve forgotten your Mac [raincoat]!» John shares this joke with an unseen member of the audience through the arch to his left. Paul now picks up on this conversation, laughing along with John as he, Paul, edges towards his position, centre stage. He turns towards George, who is also enjoying the joke, which is lost on Pete, who sits watching John from a slightly head bowed position.
Then it happens. As Paul and George gain our attention, John catches us, once again, by surprising us with a «one, two, three, four» count in. This heralds the opening A and C chords that lead into the key of D, for a storming version of “Some Other Guy” (1),a Richie Barrett number. On Barrett’s version the opening notes were played on a keyboard, at a more laid back tempo. John was to use the same sequence much later on “Instant Karma”. John and Paul sing most of the track in unison.
The number finishes to the enthusiastic applause and shouts of encouragement, from an already won over audience. Before the applause can finish, Paul launches into an up-tempo “Red Sails in the Sunset” (2), a 1935 song revived in 1955 by Nat King Cole.
The Beatles now pause to let us get our breath back. John reads requests from pieces of paper sat on his amplifier, before collecting his harmonica from the top of it, to lead into their first original track of the evening, “Love Me Do” (4). Just as the applause fades John screams the title, “Mr Moonlight”(4). George’s VOX AC30 tremolo effect adds to the Latin American feel of Pete’s drumming.
It’s now the turn of George to sing one of his repertoire of Carl Perkins tracks, “Everybody’s Tryin’ to Be My Baby” (5), which was another 1930’s song originally by Rex Griffin. George’s versatility even at this young age was very evident, as he brought Perkins’ picking style rhythm to this rock’n’roll group.
John takes the lead on an Arthur Alexander B-side, “Soldier of Love” (6). This type of track really set the Beatles apart from the other Liverpool groups. This slower rhythm and blues track shows the attention they gave to the backing vocals, a characteristic that is heard throughout their careers.
Before the applause ends, the Beatles rip into the B-side of Larry Williams hit “Dizzy MissLizzie”, “Slow Down” (7).

1. Some Other Guy (Live At The BBC)
2. Red Sails In The Sunset (Live At The Star Club)
3. Love Me Do (Live At The BBC)
4. Mr. Moonlight (Live At The Star Club)
5. Everybody’s Trying to Be My Baby (Live At The Star Club)
6. Soldier of Love (Live At The BBC)
7. Slow Down (Live At The BBC)

(5 – to be continued)

This article, with a different final contribution, has been published in Chitarra Acustica, n. 5, August 2011, pp. 62-64.